why so many Asians and Europeans wear USA flag

[Commander Tamson]

have you not noticed the masses of morons of all nationalities wearing the union jack?

Why do I get the distinct impression however that most of those sporting the Union Flag, on tee-shirts, handbags, umbrellas, car roofs etc., don't actually know that it is the UK's national flag. Watch some of the Thai soaps. It's everywhere.

Maybe it's the return of Cool Brittania!

[Commander Tamson]

How I wish France would have dominated over England in pre-revolutionary days. It would be great if Americans spoke french instead of that weird assed language you call english.

Surely you jest oh slippery one

[mogandave]

Over-runs and rejects that were supposed to ship to the US on sale cheap?

[transam]

How I wish France would have dominated over England in pre-revolutionary days. It would be great if Americans spoke french instead of that weird assed language you call english.

But they didn't, and English folk had to come to the rescue of the language you admire..... .eeeeer, a few times.

[mogandave]

...France would have dominated...

Now that right there is funny!

[transam]

...France would have dominated...

Now that right there is funny!

Agree, strange that at the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, French soldiers wanted to hang out in England, strange that eh........

[hookedondhamma]

How I wish France would have dominated over England in pre-revolutionary days. It would be great if Americans spoke french instead of that weird assed language you call english.

Then in the future people would be bitching and moaning about that weird-assed language others call 'French'.

Always something to moan about, no?

[andyg75]

How I wish France would have dominated over England in pre-revolutionary days. It would be great if Americans spoke french instead of that weird assed language you call english.

So whats stopping you learning French and living in a French speaking country,there's about 30.

No,I did'nt think so.

[Lodestone]

Jingthing, on 28 Jan 2014 - 14:51, said:

Because the USA is culturally the COOLEST country on the planet. Dude. 

 

http://www.newser.com/story/127814/obama-jay-z-steve-jobs-america-is-worlds-coolest-country-poll-says.html

Edited January 29, 2014 by Lodestone

[I Like Thai]

How I wish France would have dominated over England in pre-revolutionary days. It would be great if Americans spoke french instead of that weird assed language you call english.

They used a French dictionary for their English. Does that count ?

[faraday]

...France would have dominated...

Now that right there is funny!

Agree, strange that at the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940, French soldiers wanted to hang out in England, strange that eh........

AKA the biggest retreat.....

Edited January 29, 2014 by faraday

[kimbathewhitelion]

The Vatican or more so, Religion is the problem, or part as Government is divided into multiple parts. This App is embassingly

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[kimbathewhitelion]

Why is Thiavisa directly linked with Trip Advisor without any notification to its members. Only caught this do to my modified web list. What "Data" are you selling without consent?

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[wym]

I'm sure if you actually READ the T&C doc you'll find you've agreed to everything you might object to.

[augustwest]

I get sick and tired of Brits bashing the USA. If America didn't step in during WW 2 all you poor blokes would be speaking German.

Americans speak English but it's a fact England speaks as though they have a hot poker shoved in their rear. Americans will never speak the Queens English because we are a proud nation and speak our minds whether rich or poor with no BS as though they are better than the rest of mankind. England screwed the whole world for 200 years but sadly the USA has now taken the same course.

Everybody better accept this as fact till the Chinese will be the next ones to screw everybody.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[wym]

This App is embassingly

Please, feel free to stop using it.

I'm sure we'd be most grateful if your visiting the site from a full PC browser makes your posts more intelligible.

[andyg75]

I get sick and tired of Brits bashing the USA. If America didn't step in during WW 2 all you poor blokes would be speaking German.

Americans speak English but it's a fact England speaks as though they have a hot poker shoved in their rear. Americans will never speak the Queens English because we are a proud nation and speak our minds whether rich or poor with no BS as though they are better than the rest of mankind. England screwed the whole world for 200 years but sadly the USA has now taken the same course.

Everybody better accept this as fact till the Chinese will be the next ones to screw everybody.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

Lol,What part of England do they speak with a poker up their rear, cockney's, geordies,scouse,manc's,west country,Brummies etc etc.Do me a favour.

[maccaroni man]

For all those posters who appear to be from the occupy Wall Street clan. When you think if foraign policy and greed history proves thet spoils have always been a factor in expansion and exploration. Roman Empire, Genghis khan, British Empire, French, Russians, Dutch, Swedan, India, China come to think of it has any country ever done anything for nothing?

[wym]

Yes of course.

Doesn't make it any less wrong.

[wym]

Why is the USA the greatest country in the world?

Great answer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpn0vh2Rj0Y#t=3m14s

We used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, we struck down laws, for moral reasons. We waged war on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed; we cared about our neighbors; we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chests. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars. Acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it. It didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

Edited January 29, 2014 by wym

[Rajab Al Zarahni]

Why is the USA the greatest country in the world?

Great answer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpn0vh2Rj0Y#t=3m14s

We used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, we struck down laws, for moral reasons. We waged war on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed; we cared about our neighbors; we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chests. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. We reached for the stars. Acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn't belittle it. It didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn't scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

The greatest country in the world is where:

The French are the chefs

The Italians are the lovers

The British are the police

The Germans are the mechanics

And the Swiss make everything run on time.

The worst country in the world is where:

The British are the chefs

The Swiss are the lovers

The French are the mechanics

The Germans are the police

And the Italians make everything run on time.

[wym]

Yep, love that, actually had a T-shirt printed up at MBK along those lines, had Thais as the bargirls in there, took a bit of juggling to make it work, think Greek bargirls were on the bad side.

[banglassie]

IMHO I don't think people care that much for flags. I know I don't.
Would I wear a t-shirt with a Swedish, Thai, American flag etc? Hmm, maybe if I was on a holiday in the south somewhere on a beach, too lazy to wash by hand, and using laundry service can be almost as expensive as just buying a crappy shirt, so yea. Once I even bought a Beer Chang shirt on one of those lazy occasions. Luckily a shirt, and not a tank...

Also, most people in the world have quite a relationship to America and American culture thanks to Hollywood. Who hasn't virtually been to Manhattan or San Fransisco, LA etc?

I don't know many who prefer Bollywood to Hollywood etc. And although India is huge I think their movies often stays within India, Nepal and Sri Lanka perhaps. While Hollywood movies tend to become the next block busters, much because of the budget involved with the films. (I have to say though that I'm amazed of the quality of Thai Movies, many are really really good, I only know 4 Asian nations that come out with movies ranging from good to watchable, namely South-Korea, Japan, Thailand and China/HK.)

I have nothing against America or Americans. There's too much propaganda going on out there.. All this Zeitgeist BS and similar.. We're all doomed, DOOMEED....

Edited January 29, 2014 by banglassie

[Rajab Al Zarahni]

Yep, love that, actually had a T-shirt printed up at MBK along those lines, had Thais as the bargirls in there, took a bit of juggling to make it work, think Greek bargirls were on the bad side.

Here's another variant:

Paradise:

You live in Italy.

Your salary is American.

Your car is German.

Your girl is Thai.

Hades:

You live in Saudi Arabia.

Your salary is Albanian.

Your car is Iranian

Your girl is Bulgarian.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Rajab Al Zarahni

[wym]

Too easy, have to cycle through all the same nationalities for the two sides.

[ccarbaugh]

I'm a human being, you can apply whatever labels you like. The whole concept of nationalism is primitive and outdated.

WRT to comparing us to other countries is that the US claims to be a force for good, based on ideals, but the underlying reality is very different, used to be a lot more true in the past, or maybe most Americans were just a lot more naive.

If we just were honest that our government's purpose is to rape the planet to benefit the top percent, not be such hypocrites that we're "helping" other countries, maybe we'd get more respect.

In any case from a purely practical POV our strategy is flawed, it's all just a house of cards built on shaky ground, we've already jumped the shark a long time ago just a matter of time this Empire crumbles just like every other in history. . .

As usually I find my self in agreement with brother Wym except on the point of Nationalism, and I will get to that later,

First I want address The US's behavior around the world that we all agree is something less than desirable to say the least.

The US does what it does because it can, this is the nature of human beings, When Britain could Britain did also, so did the Spaniards , etc, etc,etc, The only difference is that now, with communications and travel being what they are, the problem is not localized as it was in the past.

What most people say about Nationalism being the opiate (along with religion) of the masses is true, but it is certainly not outdated.

It is an institution necessary fot the survival of the species.

I used to be a committed internationalist until the following revelation.

Me and a partner had opened a Pet shop, and among all the other services we offered we had a section with tropical fish. We had a number of fish tanks , no different from the pet-shops you are used to, that housed all the different fish,

and each tank was serviced by it's individual water filter.

Avery few days we had to clean these filters, it as a lot of work.

So me being lazy and the egghead that I am , devised a system where all the tanks would be interconnected with siphon tubes, a large diatom filter would remove the water from the last tank , clean it and return it to the first tank.

Brilliant!!!!

When I told my friend , who was experience in the business, he looked at me as if I was crazy,

we cant do that he said

aside from the fact that some tanks have different temperatures, If one tank gets infected with a disease, they will all get infected and we will loose the whole lot.

Years later I was thinking that story and that;s where my revelation came from.

as counter intuitive as it might sounds, All the different countries are the check and balances that keep as from killing or enslaving all of as.

When a cultural , or social disease, such as Nazism , totalitarianism, communism,capitalism, and any of the other 'isms rear their ugly head, there other countries to counter balance them.

Imagine if you will,if there was only one world governing body, and that government was infected with any particular 'ism. as all government tend to do, If that 'ism was malevolent .

we would loose the whole lot.

Nationalism maintains the different countries that in the absence of other effective institutions maintain a sense of Check and balances.

Good analogy!

My thoughts are:

I'm in complete agreement with "The whole concept of nationalism is primitive and outdated."

So, (using your analogy,) if we created another "system of check and balances"

that wasn't based on greed, domination, brutality and violence- then the "fish-tanks"

would have to make some (beneficial, creative, ...) adaptations- which

isn't necessarily a bad thing- (Especially in the case of North Korea, Cuba, USA, Israel,....)

[wym]

The Ultimate Ethnic Joke

An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Latvian, a Turk, a German, an Indian, several Americans (including a southerner, a New Englander, and a Californian), an Argentinean, a Dane, an Australian, a Slovakian, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Moroccan, a Frenchman, a New Zealander, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Guatemalan, a Colombian, a Pakistani, a Malaysian, a Croatian, a Uzbek, a Cypriot, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Chinese, a Sri Lankan, a Lebanese, a Cayman Islander, a Ugandan, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Uruguayan, a Czech, an Icelander, a Mexican, a Finn, a Honduran, a Panamanian, an Andorran, an Israeli, a Venezuelan, a Fijian, a Peruvian, an Estonian, a Brazilian, a Portuguese, a Liechtensteiner, a Mongolian, a Hungarian, a Canadian, a Moldovan, a Haitian, a Norfolk Islander, a Macedonian, a Bolivian, a Cook Islander, a Tajikistani, a Samoan, an Armenian, a Aruban, an Albanian, a Greenlander, a Micronesian, a Virgin Islander, a Georgian, a Bahaman, a Belarusian, a Cuban, a Tongan, a Cambodian, a Qatari, an Azerbaijani, a Romanian, a Chilean, a Kyrgyzstani, a Jamaican, a Filipino, a Ukrainian, a Dutchman, a Ecuadorian, a Costa Rican, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Belgian, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian and 47 Africans walk into a fine restaurant.

"I'm sorry," says the maître d', "you can't come in here without a Thai."

[JLCrab]

... and if you don't have a Thai, we'll lend you one.

[wym]

how much short time?

[JLCrab]

how much short time?

I don't know -- but sometimes you have to leave a deposit in case you spill any gravy on the Thai.